


our love, unmoved

by propinquitous



Category: The Magicians (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Grief/Mourning, Hurt/Comfort, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-04-27
Updated: 2019-04-27
Packaged: 2020-02-07 06:52:25
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,145
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18615394
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/propinquitous/pseuds/propinquitous
Summary: Later, in his dreams, he saw you.





	our love, unmoved

The fire burned and he thought, You were supposed to be it for me.

Then he thought, There is a world where you are.

The scent of peaches trailed him as he walked away.

\--

Later, in his dreams, he saw you. You were smiling, in this dream, hiding behind your long hair. He tucked it behind your ear and you looked up at him, eyes wide and gentle. You never knew it but his chest ached every time you looked at him like that. He told you he loved you but he never found the courage to tell you how heartstopping you were, how his lungs would tighten and stutter when you kissed him. And you never would have seen it, for all his bravado, but it was always there in the way he reached for your face, your hand. And now you knew.

The dream shifted and then you were under him, naked skin covered in sweat. He moved and you cried out and from the outside it was obvious that he would have loved you fiercely, if only he'd had more time.

He woke, then, and the grief threatened to pull him under.

\--

Time passed. He moved on in some ways but mostly he did not, and he never dreamed of anyone else. You came to him almost every night and for years he woke up feeling hollowed out with the knowledge of what the two of you were so close to having. Of what he was ready to be for you.

When he was awake, he began to spend his days searching for a way to bring you back. He sat alone in libraries and crypts and all manner of places and no one could make him stop. He spent his days and his sleepless nights like this and sometimes he studied and searched not because he was on a clear or determined path, but because he couldn't bear to sleep and dream of you. Those were the worst nights, when he inevitably, eventually fell asleep atop stacks of books and saw your moving muscles, touched the soft skin at the small of your back, heard the way your voice cracked when you were nervous. The recreation of things you had experienced together was so much worse, somehow, the very existence of these memories proof of what you were, could have been, might still be if only he could find you.

Sometimes - especially if he was drunk, which was often at first - he'd slip in and out of sleep, your kiss on his lips as he walked the line of waking. He cried the most after nights like these. He came to retching and struggling to breathe. The days that followed those nights were unproductive and sluggish, and only made him feel more guilty for failing you.

\--

Even in the daylight, he could hear your voice in the house sometimes, as if you were ever domestic together. But then he remembered that you had once done exactly that, lived a whole life together, and he broke completely. Proof of concept, he thought, and he went back to his books and shrugged off the help friends offered him. He was desperate to do this alone, to prove he deserved you.

At night, he began to dream most often of mundane things: the way you would leave your shoes scattered around the house, the smell of your soap and shampoo. Whether he was conscious of it or not, he missed the smallest things he never knew about you, because you never told him if you preferred the left or right side of the bed, if you brushed your teeth before or after taking a shower. He never gave you the chance to learn one another like this, and he would have, if you'd stayed. He was sure of it now.

Proof of concept, he thought. You were never really dead to him.

\--

Against all odds and much later than he wanted, he found a way. He was a little older by then, grey around the temples and in his stubble. Still, as you walked out of whatever universe or timeline he managed to pull you from - or maybe he truly conjured _his_ you, neither of you could be sure - you thought he looked handsome. You thought this even though he was on his knees and his shirt was soaked through with sweat from the effort and his face was wrecked with tears. He looked like yours.

And then, all at once. It came rushing back to you - every wrong turn, every rash decision. His years of grief hit you full force and you staggered back with the weight of it. Tears came, unbidden, and you reached for him.

How did you do it? you asked and took his hands in yours. He shook his head.

It's complicated, he said, and laughed through the tears as he stood.

Then it was like all those years ago and your head was against his chest and you were sobbing and he was too, heaving against you.

I don't understand, you said.

Why'd you go, Q? he asked and you shook your head. You couldn't explain it, not then, in that moment. It would take you years to find the words. 

I'm sorry, you said instead, I'm sorry and I'm here, I'm here now, doesn't that count for something?

You pulled back and looked up to him as you said it. 

He looked down at you and you knew it now, that your tender gaze always crushed his heart. You tried to tame it, to spare him the pain. But you couldn't help the way your own heart melted at the warmth of his body against yours. He had always been your boiling point.

Of course it does, he said. And he meant it, you knew. You thought he smelled like peaches even though he couldn't have and you knew that he loved you and wanted you and had spent years trying to find you. You understood what it meant to be loved wholly, without reservation.

Then he said, I missed you so much, you have no idea, and held your face as tenderly as he always had.

I think I have some idea, you said, and your voice cracked a little as you spoke. It betrayed you like it always had.

He spared a moment to look you over and then he kissed you with a decade’s weight worth of dreams, of grief and want. You felt heavy in his arms and it was a relief to let go, to feel the soft press of his mouth, the hard lines of his hips against yours. You were panting when he finally pulled back, his breath still hot and close.

Please stay, he whispered against your mouth.

You nodded, clutching at this shirt, and pressed up toward him.

**Author's Note:**

> in no universe is killing queers revolutionary. death is what we know best.


End file.
